MotoGP | Ducati won't stop satellite teams from beating the factory

The 2023 season saw the battle for the title between the official Ducati team rider and reigning champion Francesco Bagnaia and the Pramac rider Jorge Martin.

The Ducati standard bearers took the first three places in the standings, with Bagnaia ahead of Martin and Marco Bezzecchi third with the Desmosedici of the VR46 team, while the brand achieved 17 victories out of 20 grand prix with six of its representatives.

Towards the end of the season, Ducati repeatedly rejected the suggestion that it would have to manage the title fight through the use of team orders and insists that nothing will change in how it will treat all its riders in 2024.

“It's very clear. We have eight Ducatis that we treat honestly, for what they deserve, and what they have is written in the contract”, Davide Tardozzi told Autosport/Motorsport.com at the end of the 2023 season.

“I'm able to see all the data from all the other drivers. But we will never stop one of the other teams against the factory team. They have the right to do the best, they have the right to have all the information to beat us. Then it's up to us to have the best drivers and the best performances. It depends on the official team. Gigi (Dall'Igna, general manager, ed) is from Ducati and has eight chances to win. I am sporting director of the Ducati Lenovo team, I have two chances to win the race. So, it's up to this team to beat the others.”

But this is Gigi's mentality, it's the Ducati mentality, so it's something that pushes us to always do better and provide better things and provide the riders with the best bikes. This year Martin hasn't had a bolt less than us: he's had exactly what we have and in the same period. We have never brought a new piece without having the possibility of giving the same piece to Pramac.”

Tardozzi added: “We are not afraid of our riders and the competition within the Ducati teams, because otherwise we would not supply official bikes to Pramac and winning bikes to the other two satellite teams. So, we share the data and if we were afraid we wouldn't share it ”.

“We give all the updates to the riders who deserve it. So, if we were afraid we wouldn't do it. We have a different approach. This means that we think that competition within Ducati, i.e. between the Ducati teams, raises the level within of Ducati. We are happy to have this type of internal competition that allows us to grow in the data and our engineers are really happy to have eight chances with eight riders to see what happens on the bike.”